oning Gaufredi, the priest who had been executed at Aix:
lastly, why had not a desire for impartiality been shown by calling in
other than Carmelite monks to be present at the exorcism, that order
having a private quarrel with Grandier? It must be admitted that this
way of looking at the case was not wanting in shrewdness.

On the following day, October 12th, the bailiff and the civil lieutenant,
having heard that exorcisms had been again tried without their having
been informed beforehand, requested a certain Canon Rousseau to accompany
them, and set out with him and their clerk for the convent. On arriving,
they asked for Mignon, and on his appearance they told him that this
matter of exorcism was of such importance that no further steps were to
be taken in it without the authorities being present, and that in future
they were to be given timely notice of every attempt to get rid of the
evil spirits. They added that this was all the more necessary as
Mignon's position as director of the sisterhood and his well-known hate
for Grandier would draw suspicions on him unworthy of his cloth,
suspicions which he ought to be the first to wish to see dissipated, and
that quickly; and that, therefore, the work which he had so piously begun
would be completed by exorcists appointed by the court.

Mignon replied that, though he had not the slightest objection to the
magistrates being present at all the exorcisms, yet he could not promise
that the spirits would reply to anyone except himself and Barre. Just at
that moment Barre came on the scene, paler and more gloomy than ever, and
speaking with the air of a man whose word no one could help believing, he
announced that before their arrival some most extraordinary things had
taken place. The magistrates asked what things, and Barre replied that
he had learned from the mother superior that she was possessed, not by
one, but by seven devils, of whom Ashtaroth was the chief; that Grandier
had entrusted his pact with the devil, under the symbol of a bunch of
roses, to a certain Jean Pivart, to give to a girl who had introduced it
into the convent garden by throwing it over the wall; that this took
place in the night between Saturday and Sunday "hora secunda nocturna"
(two hours after midnight); that those were the very words the superior
had used, but that while she readily named Pivart, she absolutely refused
to give the name of the girl; that on asking what Pivart was; she had
r